Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

No contracts have been signed, but Jamie Stauffer says it looks like he will go from being a privateer working on his own bikes to a factory AMA Supersport rider with the Yoshimura Suzuki team.

“It’s not definite yet. I haven’t signed anything, but I’d say that’s what is going to happen,” the 23-year-old Australian told Roadracingworld.com Wednesday. “Hopefully, I’ll be riding for them. We’ll just have to wait and see. I’m pretty sure they want me. I speak to them (Yoshimura) tomorrow, but I would say I would be going to (the AMA team test at Road) Atlanta.”

Stauffer hopes to follow the lead of Troy Corser, Mat Mladin, Damon Buckmaster, Marty Craggill, the Gobert brothers and other Australian riders who have traveled across the Pacific Ocean to find good professional rides in America. “I came to Laguna Seca last year (during the AMA Superbike/World Superbike event) and was handing out my resumes to teams, factory-backed teams. But I know at least one of them threw it the garbage can as I was walking away. And that was a team far below the quality of the Yoshimura team.”

No American team rang Stauffer’s phone over the off-season, and he began to look at another year in the Australian National series. “I was supposed to ride for Radar’s Yamaha in Australia,” said Stauffer. “Yamaha pulled out of backing Radar’s Yamaha. That left me without a ride.

“I was talking to Balz (Renggli) one day. Balz and K.C. Cannon (owners of Aprilia-Ducati of Oceanside, California) wanted to get me over here. They said, ‘Come over, we’ll buy you a bike, pay for everything. Show them that you can ride, get a ride and if not we’ll do the whole year and hopefully have a ride for next year.’ Balz and K.C. are the only reason I’m here. If it wasn’t for them I would’ve just been riding for a team in Australia again. I owe it all to them, really.”

Truly a privateer, Stauffer built the Yamaha YZF-R6 he took seventh with in the Daytona Supersport race, beating several factory and factory-supported bikes in the process. “It probably hasn’t got 50 percent of what (parts) some of the other bikes out there have got,” stated Stauffer. “I put an Ohlins rear shock on it, TiForce exhaust system, cartridge kits in the front forks, a Power Commander and I got a quick-shifter, but it’s never worked. There’s been no machining of the cases or the head. I had a valve job done on it by Patrick Racing. I did the cam timing and dyno tuning myself here, and I added race fuel.” Stauffer was even “pulled down”, as he says, at Fontana and found to perfectly legal by the AMA Pro Racing technical officials.

“A lot of people over here don’t think a privateer can run with factory riders, but a lot of riders talk themselves out of beating the factory guys,” said Stauffer, who added he didn’t get much support for his decision to come be a privateer in America. “Everyone who I spoke to over here and at home said I was an idiot for doing it. ‘You’ll wreck your career and blah, blah, blah…’ At this stage it seems to be working out good.

“If you hear of anybody who wants a Yama…well, I probably shouldn’t say that yet because we haven’t done it. But there will hopefully be some R6s up for sale soon.”